In Letter LXV, and in Letters LXIX to LXXVII, the positions are as follows:—
1. Natural Price should not be described as depending, like Market Price, on Supply and Demand, for it can never permanently fall below or rise above the expenses of production (LXV).
2. A universal over-production is impossible (LXXII, LXXVII), and a glut of particular articles may be cured by a cessation in the production of those articles (LXXII); a 'superior genius' might so lay out our capital even now, that all might be prosperous (LXXIII).
3. It is not demand, but supply, which regulates value, and supply is itself determined by comparative cost of production (LXXIII, LXXIV).
4. If all labour and capital were devoted to production of necessaries, there might then be an over-supply or general glut, of them; but in no other case is such a glut possible (LXXIV, LXXVII).
5. Over-production tends to cure itself by destroying profits, and thereby removing the producer's motive for production. But production could not go on when this point had been reached, and therefore the over-production could not last (LXXVI).
6. The remedy would be not the greater consumption of non-producers, but the payment of lower wages, which means the securing of higher profits by the producers. When wages are excessive, the labourers are the unproductive consumers, and the employers who pay them are thereby causing instead of curing the over-production (LXXVI, LXXVII).
7. A diminished demand for labour may mean, not the employment of fewer men, but the payment of lower wages (LXXVII).
In Letters LXXVIII to LXXXVIII the positions are:—